What's the best graphing calculator in 2015?
Math/Science: TI-84 Plus CE; CAS: TI-Nspire CX CAS; Programming: TI-84 Plus CE
 40%  [ 8 ]
Math/Science: TI-84 Plus CE; CAS: HP Prime; Programming: TI-84 Plus CE
 20%  [ 4 ]
Math/Science: TI-Nspire CX; CAS: TI-Nspire CX CAS; Programming: TI-84 Plus CE
 5%  [ 1 ]
Math/Science: TI-84 Plus CE; CAS: HP Prime; Programming: HP Prime
 15%  [ 3 ]
None of these is right; my answer is in the topic
 20%  [ 4 ]
Total Votes : 20

In 2014, in 2013, and before that, we've published annual Back-to-School articles advising our readers about what graphing calculator to get for the coming school year. I'm pretty sure what I'm going to recommend this year, but I'd love to get feedback from you guys. Vote in the poll above, and post why you picked the option you picked. If you don't think any of the options I offer are good, then post and say what you think would be better. Thanks!
Graphing Calculator
If you want the Math/Science category to be for non-CAS calculators, then the CE is probably the best, but otherwise the Prime is fully superior in my opinion because of its interface and general awesomeness.
I actually think that the best CAS calcs are the Nspire series and the TI-68k calcs. The Prime's CAS is not as advanced in my opinion as the Nspire's but I also haven't explored it fully.
The best programming is definitely on the Prime because of the blazing fast BASIC-like language and color touchscreen interface.
I have to say, the CE for math, and the prime for CAS, simple because I have heard so much about the prime and its programming. Honestly, if I had a Prime right now, I would probably put it as best programming.
Nspire CX CAS all the way! Now, I know what you're thinking: "But Ivoah, programming blah blah blah" IT HAS LINUX!!! It has any programming language you could ever want! And it has a CAS so it's awesome for math and science.
Okay, well math/science, I think CE all the way since it is something everyone is used to and has a fairly low learning curve. For the CAS, I went with Nspire just cause that's the one I have and I am a big fan of it's CAS, definitely helped me out Razz Programming, once again the CE because of it's low learning curve and ti-basic is just perfect for programming math/science related things I'll agree it kind of lacks lots of things, but in the end, it's a calculator, it doesn't need more than that.
I believe the CE is nice for pretty much everything; but then I guess I am a little biased. The Nspire is quite nice if it allowed for your math class, and has great programming features as well. The CE is great if you are looking for a calculator that has the same format as what your teacher or textbook might use. Smile
Ivoah wrote:
Nspire CX CAS all the way! Now, I know what you're thinking: "But Ivoah, programming blah blah blah" IT HAS LINUX!!! It has any programming language you could ever want! And it has a CAS so it's awesome for math and science.
I know this is an argument that we've gone around and around with in the past, but unless you can program directly on the calculator, without following a difficult installation process or losing access to the TI-OS's math features, I don't consider it very programmable. So many of us got started by picking up our calculators and just starting programming TI-BASIC; I feel like a tiny fraction of the people who have explored TI-BASIC would have done so if they couldn't do everything on the calculator from the factory. That's the kind of beginner programmability that I'm trying to address.

I'm glad that people seem to agree that the TI-84 Plus CE is the easiest-to-use general math/science/SAT calculator. What about CAS? We don't seem to have a consensus there yet.
Id recommend the TI-83+ for school... Well the reasons are simple: It has perfectly enough functions for anything you might need to do at school, it is fast enough and first of all: It is way cheaper than all those new colour-screen calcs. The memory, screen resolution and that little bit of speed are definitely not worth the cost - because all that can be done with a cellphone even better than with a calculator.
At least that is my opinion.
84+CE or HP Prime. But the latter has bugs
DJ_O wrote:
84+CE or HP Prime. But the latter has bugs
For which category? All of them?

Nik: US stores are selling the TI-83 Plus and the TI-84 Plus CE for the roughly the same price right now. For example, WalMart has both calculators for $88 (see the photo in this post).
The 4th option in the poll would be my choice.
KermMartian wrote:
Ivoah wrote:
Nspire CX CAS all the way! Now, I know what you're thinking: "But Ivoah, programming blah blah blah" IT HAS LINUX!!! It has any programming language you could ever want! And it has a CAS so it's awesome for math and science.
I know this is an argument that we've gone around and around with in the past, but unless you can program directly on the calculator, without following a difficult installation process or losing access to the TI-OS's math features, I don't consider it very programmable. So many of us got started by picking up our calculators and just starting programming TI-BASIC; I feel like a tiny fraction of the people who have explored TI-BASIC would have done so if they couldn't do everything on the calculator from the factory. That's the kind of beginner programmability that I'm trying to address.

I'm glad that people seem to agree that the TI-84 Plus CE is the easiest-to-use general math/science/SAT calculator. What about CAS? We don't seem to have a consensus there yet.


Well, Jen's Script Editor also exists for on-calc lua programming. It doesn't require Ndless and is very easy to install.
How does that work? I thought that Lua didn't have file I/O access. Anyway, that helps a lot, but it's still not built into the calculator when you open the package, so my concerns are not completely assuaged. I'm willing to concede that it is an okay programming tool, but I wouldn't say it's the best calculator on which to learn to code, by far.
Lua is supported by default but you can't program it on-calc without third-party tools.
DJ_O wrote:
Lua is supported by default but you can't program it on-calc without third-party tools.
I know, we just established that through the discussion in this topic, if you read it. Smile The latest unresolved issue was how Jen's script editor edits scripts without file I/O access.
It uses Lua's version of exec (eval?) to run programs, and it has access to the the open file, is my (possibly wrong) understanding of how it works.
Regarding Jens' Script Editor:

There are two main tabs: the editor (featuring autocompletion, syntax highlighting, templates, theming, etc.), and the runner. Both communicate through the shared symbol table (Basic variables, basically).

The runner basically indeed does dynamic loading and running (through a protected call, to catch errors):
Code:
local __execute = var.recall("jseexecute")
...
local __chunk = loadstring(__execute)
...
local __status = pcall(__chunk)


Also, it's not 100% true that there is no I/O. Sure, it's not arbitrary save/load, but it's able to save/load things in .tns files located in the MyLib folder. That's how you can load external scripts, for instance (which is what I did in FormulaPro to load external formula databases)
  
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